Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Sam had put this off long enough. He should have told her before, or even last night after it happened, but he hadn’t found the words. Now, the need to confess pressed on him.
He sat, elbows braced on the table and stared at his empty hands. If he hadn’t chugged his water so fast, he could at least twist the cap, peel the label, something to do while he talked. He looked around the cabin, searching for distraction while he told her.
Finding nothing, he folded his hands together on the table and forced his gaze to hers.
“I saw her before. Last night wasn’t the first time.”
Her brow furrowed. “Who?”
He pressed his lips together. “Millicent. The mayor’s wife.”
She drew in her chin. “How could you have?”
He wanted to reach across, hold her hand, but they weren’t—they weren’t there yet. But he couldn’t sit still, so he leaned back in his chair and held onto the edge of the table hard enough that the edge dug into his palms, grounding him.
“It was years ago. Your grandparents were out of town—vacation or something. I was thirteen. Some buddies dared me to sneak into the house. Said maybe we’d see her.
We broke in through the attic, like Duval said he thought kids were doing now.
There’s an—outside the kitchen door, there’s that wooden shelf structure?
Makes it easy to get on the roof if you’re a kid.
I wouldn’t trust it now, though.” He drew in a breath through his nose, remembering how nimbly they’d climbed up onto the roof.
“But you saw her?”
Erielle’s question snapped him back in time.
“Just a flash. I was halfway up the attic stairs when she appeared—white dress, pale face, right in front of me. Just like she looked last night. I panicked, slipped, fell to the landing and snapped my arm. By the time I looked up again, she was gone. My friends bolted, left me there alone.”
“Did they see her too?”
“No. They swore they didn’t.” His mouth flattened.
“For hours I lay there, arm throbbing, listening to her in my head. Not words exactly—more like an echo of a voice inside my head.” If he closed his eyes right now, he could see the view he’d had, on his back on the carpet, looking up at the pitched ceiling of the hallway, thinking he was going to die.
“Oh, Samson.” She reached across the table for his hand.
He hesitated a heartbeat, then clasped her hand, the contact easing the tightness in his chest. “After that, I couldn’t sleep.
Days. Every creak of the house sounded like her.
I was too old to crawl in with my folks but too scared to stay alone.
One night I even tried sleeping in the church.
Figured maybe she couldn’t follow me onto holy ground.
” He huffed a humorless laugh.You should have seen me.
I looked like I was halfway to becoming a spirit myself.
“My mom found me in the church, trying to sleep on one of the pews, with just a beat-up pillow, and she brought me back to the house. She made this drink in the blender—it was green, I remember that. Like a smoothie. I drank it, and almost instantly I started barfing. Like from my toes. I’ve never experienced anything like it, before or since, and I went to some good parties at Tulane.
” He flashed a smile, then sobered back to finish his story.
“I barely remember her helping me back up to bed. I slept for three days, and didn’t think about the mayor’s wife anymore. ”
“Sam. Do you think?—?”
He was already nodding. “I didn’t at the time, or any time since, but after what we learned today, yeah. I think my mother gave me a potion.”
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Erielle said as she pulled back the quilt on her side of the bed.
They hadn’t even discussed that they would share the bed again, just walked into the bedroom together, not wanting to be apart.
“If you saw her, does that mean the protection spell wasn’t in place yet?
Whatever my grandmother did to protect the house?
I would have been eight or nine at the time.
And the way Marie and your mom tell it, my grandmother already knew what she was doing when they were teenagers. So how were you able to see her?”
He was shaking his head as he sat on the edge of the bed and peeled off his socks, folding them together and tossing them toward the hamper she hadn’t noticed in the corner.
“I’ve been thinking about that too, all day. I don’t know the answer.”
“Have you ever seen any other ghosts?” She climbed between the cool sheets. “The ones in the swamp, maybe?”
“I mean, blinks of light, but that doesn’t mean I’ve seen ghosts, you know?”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmured, resting her head on the pillow that smelled of him.
He turned out the bedside light and stretched out, facing her, the hum of the mini-split the only sound in the room.
“Is this weird?” he asked at least, motioning between them.
She choked out a laugh. “Us sleeping in the same bed is not even in the top ten of weird things that have happened this week.”
His answering grin relaxed her. “I guess not.”
“Can we talk about something else besides ghosts before we go to sleep? Like, what was it like at Tulane? I never went to college proper, missed out on that whole experience.”
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “You can imagine what it was like for a preacher’s kid from a small town to go to the big city.”
“Eye opening?”
“Oh, at the very least. My first roommate was from San Antonio, and he had gone to community college first, so he was a little older. Still not legal, but he was a little more worldly, so he kind of took me under his wing and took me to football games and parties and introduced me to a whole new world of people. And then there were the classes, with these professors with ideas I’d never heard before, filled with people who dressed different and talked different and acted different.
A lot of them didn’t care what anyone else thought, and I was stunned by that. ”
“And you liked it?”
“I loved it. And when I came home the first time, for Thanksgiving, I brought up some of those ideas at the dinner table, and boy, did that piss my dad off. He threatened to pull me out of school, to drag me home. Honestly, I think that’s where our relationship started degrading, when I dared to question him. ”
“I’m sorry. Did you ever—were you ever close?” She had tried to remember, but though she’d had a crush on him, she didn’t remember seeing him with his dad all that much.
“I mean, yeah. We played ball, and we worked together to fix up my car when I was in high school. But he isn’t the most open-minded person.”
“Did he grow up here, too?”
“Not Phantom Bayou, but another small town.”
“How did he and your mother meet?”
“College. But not a university. A small Christian college.”
“The preacher and the witch. That’s just so wild to me. Are your grandparents religious? Do they still live here?” She didn’t remember them from her summers here. Maybe a mention or two from Susan, but she didn’t know if she had ever met them.
“They moved to Baton Rouge when the factory closed. They wanted to be closer to doctors and hospitals as they got older. Fortunately, so far, neither has needed them. And yes, both are pretty religious, my grandmother more than my grandfather.”
“I’m just trying to work out how your mother turned to witchcraft with that kind of upbringing and schooling.”
“Rebellious, maybe. Or curiosity. I don’t know.”
That made sense, especially if she was friends with Marie.
“Do you wish you could have gone to college?” he asked, his voice low in the dark.
“I mean.” She traced the stitching on the quilt. “It would have been nice to have friends instead of rivals. To buy books instead of knives. Though I still have some of those knives.”
“But none of the friends.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I’ve wondered, a lot lately, if I’m built to have friends. Maybe I’m not. I had a few people try to help me with the trial against Dylan, but once I lost, everyone disappeared. Not even so much as a couch to crash on.”
He hmphed. “Did you ask?”
“What?”
He rose up, propping his head on his bent elbow.
“You forget that I’m getting to know you pretty well, Erielle.
Did you ask for help? I can imagine you asking for help with the trial, with getting back at Dylan, or whatever.
But for something that would just benefit you, I don’t see you asking for help. ”
She pressed her lips together, emotions she couldn’t identify swirling through her head. Did he know her that well? Because she hadn’t asked for help with money or a place to stay. Her pride wouldn’t have allowed it.
That was also why she hadn’t asked her parents for help. She knew without a doubt that while they might have offered it, it wouldn’t have been unconditional. Which was why she had just depended on herself.
“If this house hadn’t been an option, maybe I would have asked,” she admitted.
“I’m glad you had the house as an option,” he said, taking her hand across the mattress. “But you should learn to lean on people.”
“I’m leaning on you pretty hard right now. Louis, too. Hattie and Allison, Marie and your mom.”
“You are,” he conceded. “Maybe it was a lesson you needed.”
“Maybe.” She let her eyes drift shut. “College would have been better, though.”
She drifted to sleep with him tracing circles on the back of her hand.
The room was pitch black when she sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding against her ribs as if she’d been running. She didn’t need a lamp or a clock. She knew exactly where she was.
For a beat she just sat there, palms gripping the quilt, breath ragged. The thought was so clear, so loud it felt as if someone had whispered it in her ear.
She leaned across the mattress, fingers closing on Samson’s shoulder. “Sam,” she hissed, giving him a quick shake.
He stirred, rubbing at his face, hair a dark tumble across his forehead. “Wh—Erielle?” His voice was rough with sleep. “What’s wrong?”
“I know where the book is.”
The last of the drowsiness slid from his eyes. He pushed up on one elbow, the mattress creaking under his weight. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” Her pulse throbbed in her ears, and she took another breath trying to calm it.
His gaze flicked to the window above the bed. “Still dark. I’m not going into that house until the sun’s up.” Then he looked back at her. “It is in the house, right?”
“Absolutely it is.” But she wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. He could, if he wanted, but she slid out of bed and padded out of the room. She’d seen a coffeemaker on the counter, and she was going to need it today.